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Description
This project aims to promote the social inclusion and employability of youth people with disabilities or special educational needs (between 15 and 35 years old) by promoting weekly workshops for the development of social and personal skills, digital literacy workshops and clothing customization. This last workshop goal is to create a social cooperative for the transformation of clothes and subsequent sale of the pieces executed by the beneficiaries in an online shop, thus promoting the creation of their own jobs. The project philosophy is about environmental sustainability and a circular economy.
Summary of project results
Youth unemployment in the northern region is one of the highest in Portugal (36.3% of young people under the age of 25, 2017), and young people with disabilities or NEE face additional constraints in accessing the labour market and thus achieving effective professional and social integration. According to the Social Diagnosis of the Municipality of Gondomar, there are 7 structures for people with disabilities, which intervene with 323 people and 238 are awaiting intervention. There is a lack of responses in the area of inclusion for people with disabilities, which extend their scope of intervention to young people with SEN. At the same time, there are socially and economically vulnerable populations in the area of intervention who have gaps in their access to spaces for cultural production and participation. In 2018 there were 3114 RSI beneficiary families and 8922 unemployed people registered with the IEFP, most of them long-term unemployed.
Through our partnership work, we''ve detected that many of these young people, after attending regular apprenticeships, end up without effective integration responses, isolated and distanced from various socialisation channels, with a lack of socialisation opportunities, with obsolete or poorly updated technical training and difficulties in finding collective spaces and productive activities that allow them to acquire support networks.
During the project, 189 Costume Customisation workshops were held in person and 11 online; 157 face-to-face workshops and 26 workshops via online, were held about Personal and Social Skills; 66 face-to-face workshops and 25 online workshops, on Digital/Multimedia Literacy and 37 Financial Literacy Worskhops, 10 of which were online.
During the process 80 young people were included, aged between 15 and 35. 22 workshops were organised to work on issues related to the acquisition of autonomy and skills, and a support and sharing group was set up.
The project has had an important media projection, not only for its sustainability, but also in terms of the possibility of social and community transformation intended in the inclusion of people with disabilities or mental illness. The 3 exhibitions at the Miguel Bombarda Shopping Centre, the participation in Brand Up and the participation in the Portugal Fashion Show (an event with a high profile and significant recognition in the fashion industry) were central for this result.
The project reached 80 participants between the ages of 15 and 35 and 14 adults with a focus on employability. Of the participants involved, 53 went on to work, 16 of whom were integrated into the labour market, 32 were integrated into tailor-made training, 2 were integrated into a socially useful activity and 3 started attending cultural venues on a regular basis outside the project. In the assessment of personal and social skills and financial literacy, the team and partners, the participants and their families noticed a favourable evolution in these skills, which benefited their integration into employment/training. The creation of new support networks, was also an important result for this group of people, whose lives when they joined the project were confined to their families. The development of digital competences was also considered as very positive and fundamental in the periods of the pandemia isolation. During the project implementation 51 parents/carers and 37 young people were also integrated in training or secondary education.